Berta Berkovich Kohút

Berta Berkovich Kohút (Slovak: Berta Berkovičová-Kohútová;[1]: 124  November 8, 1921 – February 14, 2021) was a Czechoslovakian-born survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. By the time of her death in 2021, she was the last surviving seamstress who lived through internment at the camp by creating dresses for the wives of Nazi officers.

Life

Berta Berkovich, known as Betka or Bracha,[2][1]: 124  was born on November 8, 1921, in Chepa, a small village then located in the eastern region of Czechoslovakia and now in Ukraine. Her father, Solomon Berkovich, was a tailor by profession and deaf-mute.[3][1]: 124  Her mother, Karolína Štern was originally from Forgolány, Hungary, and the family was Jewish.[1]: 124  They relocated to Bratislava in 1926, where Solomon established his own successful tailoring firm, and came to employ three deaf-mute workers. His wife worked with him as an interpreter and fitter for their customers.[3][4] When she was twelve, Berta was confined in a sanatorium for tuberculosis treatment, and learned to speak Czech. Despite attending a commercial high school, Berta had limited opportunities due to the rising fascism and anti-Semitism in Slovakia. She was taught tailoring by her father.[5]: 195 [3]

Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp

In 1942, 21-year-old Berkovich was taken to Auschwitz, along with her sister and around a thousand other women of similar age.[3] She was assigned the identification number 4245.[6] During the peak of the Holocaust, a group of twenty-five young women, primarily Jewish, were chosen to produce high-end garments for prominent Nazi women in a specialized salon at Auschwitz-Birkenau.[7] The Berkovich sisters were among the seamstresses chosen to work in the tailoring studio.[8]

Upper Tailoring Studio

Hedwig Höss, the wife of camp commandant Rudolf Höss, founded a dressmaking workshop where everyday dresses and luxurious evening gowns were among the creations.[9] The Obere Nähstube, or Upper Tailoring Studio in English, was operated by female prisoners who were selected for their sewing expertise.[10][11] These women included former couture seamstresses, fashion designers, and salon owners.[10][8] Marta Fuchs, a Kapo, who headed the studio worked with inmates like Alida Vasselin, a French corsetière arrested for smuggling anti-Nazi pamphlets in her corsets, and Marilou Colombain, a French Resistance sergeant.[12][13] Fuchs utilized her abilities and expertise as a former salon owner to recruit additional staff, including her niece, Rozsika, who had minimal sewing skills, but assisted with picking up pins.[8]

Because sewing in the studio ensured their relative safety, the seamstresses worked in the internal underground of Auschwitz to help other prisoners. Using external fabric suppliers as go-betweens for communications, the tailors kept prisoners informed of the progress of the war. They also were able to get messages out of the camp. When the evacuation of the camp was ordered in 1945, the seamstresses gathered warm clothes before being marched across occupied Poland. Although the other family members did not survive, both Berta and Katka were saved by their sewing ability and employment in the tailoring studio.[1]: 124 [3][8]

Family

After the war, Berkovich married Leo Kohn Kohút, a writer who had lost his first wife in the camps. They initially lived in Bratislava for three years, and then moved to Czechoslovakia, where Kohút worked in the publishing house, Smena.[1]: 124 [3] They had two sons, Tom and Emil, who both relocated to Marin County, California. When Czechoslovakia was invaded in 1968, the couple moved to California to be near their children.[3]

Death

Kohút died on February 14, 2021, at Kaiser Hospital in San Rafael, California, as a result of complications from COVID-19. She was 99 years old. Tom Areton stated to The Times of Israel that his mother spent one thousand days in Auschwitz and reportedly expressed the sentiment that she felt as though death could have occurred on numerous occasions during each of those days.[14] When she died, Kohút was the last known surviving seamstress of those who worked in the sewing studio at Auschwitz.[3][15][16][17]

Legacy

In 2017, an oral interview of Kohút was recorded in California and published in an article "My Experiences during a Three-Year Imprisonment in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp" in the journal Judaica et holocaustica in 2019.[1]: 124  British novelist and fashion historian, Lucy Adlington, wrote The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive (2021), after interviewing Kohút.[5]: 195  The book provides an account of the manner in which the Nazis profited from confiscating the belongings of deportees, reconditioning them, and making them available for use by citizens of the Reich.[10][8] In a review, Laura L. Camerlengo, a costume curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, noted that the well-documented and researched publication also explores the experiences and personal stories of the seamstresses, like Kohút, who worked in the fashion studio.[5]: 195 

See also

References
  1. Mičev, Stanislav (2019). "My Experiences during a Three-Year Imprisonment in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp – Memoirs of Berta Berkovičová-Kohútová recorded on 15 September 2017 in San Rafael, California" (PDF). Judaica et Holocaustica. 10 (1): 124–137. ISSN 2644-7045. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  2. Adlington, Lucy (2021-09-02). The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-303094-7. …Bracha was born at her grandparents' house
  3. "Berta Kohút Obituary (1921 - 2021) - Marin County, CA - Marin Independent Journal". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  4. Adlington, Lucy (2021-09-02). The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-303094-7. ……grew the business to have three staff – all deaf-mute
  5. Camerlengo, Laura L. (2022-07-03). "The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive". Dress. 48 (2): 195–197. doi:10.1080/03612112.2022.2071030. ISSN 0361-2112. S2CID 248931982.
  6. https://www.pressreader.com/usa/san-francisco-chronicle-late-edition-sunday/20210314/284485756277945. Retrieved 2023-01-11 – via PressReader. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  7. Adlington, Lucy (2021-09-02). The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-303094-7. …Twenty-five women working in total
  8. Stutchbury, Erin; Street, Julie (2021-10-14). "In her salon, Marta fitted the Nazis' wives for dresses. Outside, their husbands were killing millions at Auschwitz". ABC News. Retrieved 2023-01-22.
  9. Adlington, Lucy (2021-09-02). The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-303094-7. …was established by none other than Hedwig Höss, the camp commandant's wife
  10. "Historian brings to light story of the dressmakers of Auschwitz". Hindustan Times. 2021-09-15. Retrieved 2023-01-22.
  11. Adlington, Lucy (2021-09-02). The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-303094-7. …I was staggered when I first saw mention of the 'Upper Tailoring Studio'
  12. Julander, Håkan (2018). På insidan av Nazityskland [Inside Nazi Germany] (in Swedish). Tønsberg, Norway: Orage Forlag. ISBN 978-91-521-1288-5. Åtminstone två sömmerskor var med i den franska motståndsrörelsen: Alida Vasselin, en korsettmakare som arresterades 1942 för att ha gömt antinazistpropaganda i korsetterna hon sydde, och Marie Louise Colombain en sergeant i motståndet [At least two seamstresses were involved in the French Resistance: Alida Vasselin, a corset maker who was arrested in 1942 for hiding anti-Nazi propaganda in the corsets she sewed, and Marie Louise Colombain, a seargent in the resistance]
  13. Adlington, Lucy (2021-09-02). The Dressmakers of Auschwitz: The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-303094-7. …two French communists, corsetière Alida
  14. Lebovic, Matt. "Sewing for survival: The last of Auschwitz's forgotten 'dressmakers' dies". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  15. Whiting, Sam (2021-02-22). "Holocaust survivor Berta Berkovich Kohút dies in San Rafael at 99". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  16. "Marin memoriam: Notable residents who died in 2021". Marin Independent Journal. 2021-12-26. Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  17. Lebovic, Matt. "Sewing for survival: The last of Auschwitz's forgotten 'dressmakers' dies". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2023-01-22.
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